The Resurrection and Marriage

I once heard a story about Robert Ingersoll, the famous atheist of some decades ago. It is told that at one time he sought to show how the miracle of Lazarus being raised from the dead by Jesus was just a trick to bolster His waning fortunes. To clinch his point, Ingersoll … More

Resurrection

The Sadducees were the Jewish religious liberals of that day. They accepted as Scripture only the Five Books of Moses and they denied the resurrection, angels and spirits (Acts 23:8). As a result they denied the very power of God (v. 27). These Sadducees asked Jesus a hypothetical question based on the law of the Levite marriage found in Deut. 25:5-10. (That being that a man was required to marry his brother’s widow if her husband had died (v. 28). They wanted to know if this woman lost seven husbands, whose wife she would be in the resurrection (vv. 29-33). Jesus statement does not mean that people will not recognize their partners in heaven. It simply means that we must not think of heaven as an extension of life as we now know it.

Jesus pointed out that there will be no marriage or childbearing in heaven. We will maintain our identities and know each other, but there will be no more death and therefore no need for marriage and children being born (vv/ 34-40). Our Lord’s resurrection body was the same as before His death and yet different! People recognized Him and touched Him. He ate food, but at the same time, He could walk through doors, change His appearance and vanish suddenly. In heaven we will share the image of Christ (I Jn. 3:2). We don’t know everything about our resurrection life but Jesus affirms that relationships will be different from what they are here.

Warren Wiersbe put it well when he said, “Resurrection is not reconstruction.” Our glorified body will be a new body. If God was powerful enough to give different bodies to the various things in creation, He is certainly able to give people new bodies at the resurrection.

Application

How do I answer people who may ask me absurd questions? Notice that Jesus did not ridicule them and neither should I. It is my job to be patient, loving and concerned about the souls of those who may be asking me questions.

Luke 20:27-40 (English Standard Version)

There came to him some Sadducees, those who deny that there is a resurrection, and they asked him a question, saying, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, having a wife but no children, the man must take the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife, and died without children. And the second and the third took her, and likewise all seven left no children and died. Afterward the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had her as wife." And Jesus said to them, "The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage, but those who are considered worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore, because they are equal to angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. But that the dead are raised, even Moses showed, in the passage about the bush, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. Now he is not God of the dead, but of the living, for all live to him." Then some of the scribes answered, "Teacher, you have spoken well." For they no longer dared to ask him any question.